by David Parker

Founder/CEO BeatThat.com

 

As CEO of BeatThat.com, I'm in a position to see eBay's deals constantly, because BeatThat's "Deal-Finders" submit dozens of eBay deals to BeatThat.com daily in order to make money (we pay between fifty cents and two dollars per approved deal).

What I see coming from eBay isn't pretty.  Quite frankly, I'm surprised eBay is doing as well as it is, because the level of inconsistency in terms of appearance, data, and quality is remarkable.  I have been reading lately that eBay wants to encourage its bigger stores to post non-auction offers - I think this program has a LONG way to go before shoppers feel safe to navigate eBay's waters.

So here's my Top Ten list of the current problems with eBay, faced by shoppers:

1) It's very difficult to judge the item's condition.

eBay sellers use a variety of terms to describe a product's condition, from New to NIB (New In Box) to Perfect to Mint to MIB (Mint in Box) to NWT (New With Tags) to Mint in Mint Box.  Shoppers have to pick through the listings to figure out exactly what these terms (or worse, the absence of them) mean.

2) The quality score of Sellers is meaningless.

Doesn't eBay understand that nearly every seller on their service seems to have a 98+% quality score?  Does anyone really believe that ALL these sellers are that good?

3) Confusing/Misleading Item Titles.

As much as eBay tries to get sellers to put the "right" info into its listings' titles,  it's still the "Wild West" out there.  ALL CAPS, multiple exclamation points (!!!!), superlative language ("Excellent!"), "compare" with other products (to get more listing views) - it's all there.

4) Terrible inconsistency in the design/user interface of product listing pages.

eBay is trying to encourage its "power sellers" to put together high-quality pages, and it's failing.  Sellers load in poorly designed graphics and pictures are often stock pictures instead of the actual item being sold.  The layout of these pages reminds me of HTML pages built in 1996.

5) Sellers write useless information on their product pages.

All too often sellers bypass the structured data fields ("Item Specifics") and load generic product descriptions taken directly from manufacturers - info that is of no value to the shopper.

6) Search/Search Results Pages are a nightmare.

"Featured Items" are shown first, and for a popular product, that could mean dozens of listings, all of which look the same, with similar graphics and descriptive text.    The default sort order is nonsensical - prices vary greatly, as do the times when listings end.  Eventually some listings don't have photos, which makes them look lame; some listings include accessories, some don't; and there can be many duplicate listings from the same sellers.

7) Buy It Now v. Auction — the difference can be meaningless.

Many "power sellers" post the same items as both "Buy It Now" and "Auction," just in different listings.  Or the "Buy It Now" option is added or subtracted during an auction, at the seller's whim.  From a shopper's perspective, one is left wondering what the difference is.

8) Seller Reviews — Useless.

Even if you wanted to find the infinitessimal number of negative reviews on a seller, eBay doesn't have a sorting feature to "show negative reviews" first.  One has to page through the reviews (sorted by date) until you come across a negative one.  Seems like the whole system is stacked in the sellers' favor.

9) PayPal.

I know PayPal offers insurance on problem deals, but I have also heard that credit cards in some cases do not guarantee PayPal payments.  Regardless, it's a perception issue - buying with a credit card is perceived to be safer for the shopper than with PayPal.

10)  "eBay Stores" are a joke.

Seriously, if eBay thinks these sellers are counting on these stores to become a bigger part of their business, they better take some drastic actions.  eBay stores remind me of what happens when young kids are given crayons and a blank sheet of paper - sometimes you get something cute, but more often than not you get scribbles.

So there you have it.  What five years ago shoppers flocked to as a site where one could discover treasures for sale from all over the world, eBay now is a site over-run with poorly organized, poorly designed, and poorly run stores.  The wonder, the surprise, the fun is gone.

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Starting today, BeatThat will be displaying a quality score next to Deal-Finders' names.  It will show as a percentage, indicating the number of approved deals divided by the number of submitted deals over the prior 30 days.

We are displaying this with two goals in mind:

1) To help shoppers feel comfortable with a deal (assuming a DealFinder is nearly 100% accurate in their entries);

2) To impress upon DealFinders how important quality of deal submission information really is.

While there are some extra costs to BeatThat in having to review deals and in particular to ferret out bad ones, the real issue here is making sure that 100% of the visible deals on the site are accurate.  It's bad for all of us if a shopper has a negative experience at BeatThat, so we must all work hard to ensure deals are correct.

If you're a DealFinder and you're wondering how your quality score might affect you, we're not sure at the moment.  The BeatThat staff has discussed various ideas, including prizes for DealFinders with the highest ratings, or punishments for DealFinders who have too many deals rejected.  But for the moment, we're just going to watch the data and see if it affects DealFinder behavior.

Thanks for reading and for helping make BeatThat a great site!

David Parker

Founder/CEO

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